Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Halide Mark III

Ben Sandofsky:

Mark III is now available in the App Store. This post highlights the major new features, starting with Looks, which produce gorgeous photos straight-out-of-camera.

[…]

Inspired by “Less, but better,” we partnered with the renowned Hollywood colorist Cullen Kelly to develop a succinct set of gorgeous, physically accurate processes exclusive to Halide. Each look was engineered with a specific intent. We verified every look thousands of times on real-world reference photos.

[…]

As Mark III became better and better, I actually missed its results when I reached for a standalone camera. I figured a lot of people might feel the same. So we’re excited to announce that Halide now lets you import RAW files from standalone cameras to apply the same magic that defines Halide.

I like the idea of looks, and the Apple vs. Halide Rembrandt comparison is striking, but I don’t like the workflow of making these decisions from my phone.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-08): John Gruber:

What I want is to just point and shoot and be able to instantly share images with the look I want already applied. I’m picky but I’m also really lazy, and don’t want to do any editing in post on most of the shots I keep. But I do want to be able to edit in post if I want to, including changing the look losslessly. This mixture of point-and-shoot ease and pro-level control didn’t use to be possible. Now, though, it is, with apps like Not Boring Camera, Analogue, and, now, Halide Mark III.

3 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon


As a photographer, the last thing I want is an app with opinions.


@Christopher Not sure what you mean. Aren’t they all opinionated in terms of how the photo is “developed”? Certainly Apple’s is. Some give more choices than others.


The Rembrandt portrait in the comparison looks underexposed to me.

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